Akame Ga Kill: Subservience
by Real Personal Trooper Type-0
Summary: It's already known that Tatsumi could so easily deny the advances of Esdese, the seeds of rebellion already woven into his mind. However, what if he had met her much earlier, long before such seeds were even planted? What could happen then? Could he perhaps swear loyalty to her, placing her above even his own livelihood? What would be the future effects in such a tale? Let's see...


_**Hello everyone. R-0 here and welcoming you to my new Fanfiction. Hope you all like it.**_

_**NOTE: This Fanfic is derived from the Manga canon and not the Anime's. Non Manga-readers beware of possible spoilers as well as plot-points and characters who you may not recognize due to them being exclusive to said Manga.**_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Akame Ga Kill/Kiru or its respective materials.**_

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><p><span>Chapter 1: Kill the Desperation<span>

It was a fairly typical night within the bustling metropolis that is the Imperial Capital. Soldiers wandered the streets, enthusiastically drinking their mugs of alcohol, trying to encroach on nearby women for their names and other such personal details. Vendors were all set up, ready to sell their cheap imitations to gullible fools willing to purchase them for exorbitant prices. The night lights from the hanging lanters and windows illuminated the bustling streets. Yes, a very typical sight for any local to the Capital City.

For one such youth, however, this was all a very atypical sight. Said youth was a boy in his mid-teen with medium length brown hair, sporting fairly long bangs and a cowlick, his green eyes taking in the sights with minor enthusiasm. His garb was also fairly average: Sporting a tan jumper with a white undershirt, black trousers and brown combat boots with matching brown gloves/bracers. On his back, one could see a travelling backpack a small sheath carrying a Shortsword to suit his smaller build.

Normally, the sights of the surrounding city around him might have filled him with wide-eyed disbelief. Unfortunately, his mind was elsewhere…

"That damn woman!" He mutters to himself in annoyance. "Not only did she steal all my hard-earned money, I had to pay for all of her drinking!" He remarks, glancing down at his pitifully-small amount of coinage left.

Seemingly to just annoy himself, he recalls his encounter with the scantily-clad, well-endowed blond woman who cheated him of his rewards. After being swiftly kicked out of the recruitment centre by a disgruntled officer, the con-artist greeted him with promises of helping get inducted into the Imperial Army. After draining his funds dry with her excessive drinking, she informed him that she had connections that could assist. Jumping at the opportunity, he trustingly gave her the majority of his funds to which she departed with the promise of returning…

Ten hours passed… She never returned…

Which brings us to now. Our youth walks the streets in a pitiful mood after realizing that he had gotten conned pretty easily. Honestly, he looks back at the event with shame.

"I just know that is Sayo or Ieyasu saw that, they'd be rolling all over the floor with laughter!" He thinks out loud to himself. He could just imagine the reactions they would have to him squandering the money he earned for the village:

"_What?! Man, I thought I used to respect you! I guess the glory for saving our village is mine! Oh, man, I can just imagine the beauties flocking to me!"_

"_Aww, it's ok, Tatsumi. You did your best. We'll just have to do better in your place."_

The thought made him ruffle his hair in frustration.

"_I swear, I best never meet that woman again or she'll be sorry!" _He thinks to himself, the shame he's feeling further aggravating the frustration he feels towards the woman.

"How did I even get myself into this situation?!" He shouts to the sky, seemingly unaware of the concerned stares he was drawing. "It should have been easy! Walk into the Recruitment Centre and get a spot in the army!" He continues to rant, causing everyone around him to vacate the area, seemingly not wanting to deal with the irate youth. "Instead, I got thrown out on my ass and had all my money stolen by an outlaw!" He finally stops yelling to the sky, raising his eyes back to eye level to observe an empty pathway that, a few seconds ago, was brimming with life. "Huh, I wonder where everyone went."

Seemingly to break him out of the reverie, a stray piece of paper collides with the youth's face, causing him to stumble. Due to still being in a relatively bad mood, he pries the sheet off of his face and scrunches it in his hand with much annoyance. As he's about to toss it, however, the title caught his eye:

"_The Black Crow" Hunter's Guild._

_Positions available._

_Feel like you could slaughter a Class-S Danger Beast with your bare hands? Sign up with our Guild for some easy money!_

_How to find it? Oh, that's easy! Go back to the Main Gate and follow the Main Street. Look for a huge crow on a sign and there you go!_

At the sight of the advertisement, Tatsumi reveals a toothy smirk along with a renewed sense of vigor.

"If I can't get a spot in the army…" He begins, clenching his fist with determination. "I'll get the money from somewhere else!" He says with finality as he takes off in search of the aforementioned Guild.

"_Just watch Sayo, Ieyasu!" _He thinks to himself, a confident smile on his face as he continues to run through the lit streets. "_I'll be rolling in the money while you're still wiping snow off of your coats!" _

* * *

><p><strong>24 hour later…<strong>

"And there goes the last of my money…" Tatsumi mutters to himself, kneeled down and pressed onto a building, looking at his pathetically-empty pouch in one hand and the single stick of bread in the other, a metaphorical raincloud directly above his head as his sack and Shortsword rest to his left side.

His previous day was... not so successful. He had located "The Black Crow" within good time. Just like when he strolled into the recruitment office, however, he was promptly rejected and, when he tried to plead his case, thrown back onto the streets. Apparently, other prospective money-makers such as himself had had the same idea and beaten him to the punch.

That didn't stop Tatsumi, however. Confident that another guild would be able to offer him a position, he tracked down numerous other ones throughout the course of the day, each time his hope becoming progressively less and less until his defeated state now. As expected, they also rejected him swiftly. Luckily, he managed to get a greater sense of just _why _he was being rejected so readily by every establishment he queried:

He was too young. Being in his mid-teens was not an appealing factor in being offered a position hunting. It didn't matter if he was one of the better hunters from his village and even had the trophies to prove it; in the Capital, his small stature and young age were a detriment in being offered a position. Guilds wanted someone older with sufficient experience (Even if Tatsumi has been hunting for most of his life) for such a profession.

This was, in fact, one of the reasons why he and his friends had always agreed to aim for a position in the military first and, should that fail, hunting second: From what they had heard, the Army was relatively relaxed about your age to an acceptable level. Likewise, the whole point of becoming a recruit is to gain experience in time for becoming a soldier, so there's that issue dealt with as well. Hunting, however, is more particular about who is eligible and who isn't for their guilds and organisations.

He'd even gotten so desperate that he tried knocking on _any_ establishment, hoping to score some kind of job that he could brag to his missing cohorts. Again, however, they were not interested.

"I guess a job in the Army _is_ my best bet." He mutters to himself, taking a large bite out of the bread and savouring it before placing his free hand on his head in contemplation. "But what do I do? That guy's never gonna even so much as consider me after the crap I pulled last time." He surmises before a mirthful look cross his face and glances at the ground.

"_I suppose… I could beg…"_ He momentarily wonders before hastily shaking his head, seemingly disgusted with himself for such a thought. "_No, no! I can't do that! That's too embarrassing!"_ He continues his mental battle with absolute confidence to NOT do what his mind is suggesting. Adding to his confliction, he once again glances at the single, pitiful loaf and broad, already half-eaten, and feels his adamant mind-set disappearing.

"_I mean… what choice do I have?" _Tatsumi admits dejectedly to himself, lowering his head ashamedly. "_If I don't, then they'll…"_

Once again, the images of a mocking Ieyasu and comforting Sayo burn into the forefront of his mind, both equally disappointed with his failure and incompetence…

"_I guess the glory for saving our village is mine!"_

"_We'll just have to do better in your place."_

"Oh, to hell with it!" He shouts out loud, quickly rising from his spot and throwing the bread to the ground. Luckily, he's in a desolate alleyway, so there's no such individual to gawk at him this time. "To hell with my pride! I _need _a job so I can get money to shove in their faces!" He reasons to himself, clenching his fist. "Who cares what I had to do to get one? I mean, it's not like they're ever gonna find out _How _I got the job!" He reasons to justify his intended actions.

"I gotta do this!" A determined look crosses his features. "So I have something to prove to them!"

And with that resolve, the youth ties his sword back around his chest and grabs his bag, slinging his provisions back over his shoulders. A determined look clear on his face, he marches down the cobblestone path, back towards the first building he enter when he came to this Capital in a confident strut.

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><p><strong>Recruitment Office…<strong>

The familiar youth stands at the front of the building which he, a day prior, had been so readily kicked out of due to his own grandstanding, the memory of which was playing across Tatsumi's head over and over again like a repeating Record Player before squelching it out and steeling his nerves.

With a determined expression present, he walked inside, hoping that his pride would forgive him for what he was about to do.

As he enters, he notices that, due to it being the later part of the day, the barracks are much less populated than during his first excursion.

"_I should count that as a blessing for what I'm about to do…"_

Spying the familiar black-haired man sat at his desk rather tediously going through stacks of papers and applications that require his attention. Luckily (Or unluckily depending on perspective), there's no queue leading up to his desk that Tatsumi would be forced to stand in and perhaps accidentally change his mind.

Steeling his nerves, the Youth walks towards the seated individual. Once in range of the individual's peripheral vision, the man looked up from what he was doing to regard the approaching. He immediately recognized the individual with a sneer and annoyed expression.

"Oh, it's you." He sneers. "I thought I told you to-"

His remark his interrupted as Tatsumi, surprisingly, drops his belongings and drops onto the floor himself, adopting a begging posture, his hands placed in front of his head which was kissing the ground.

"Please give me a job!" Tatsumi pleads, somehow placing his head further into the ground. "I admit that I was being a cocky idiot last time when I could assume that being an Officer was so easy and that I could just become a soldier straight away. It was only because I am in desperate need of a job!" He continues, drawing the attention of the handful of people inside the office as well as the targeted individual himself being floored by this display.

"Look, kid." The officer starts, rubbing his temples slightly in irritation. "I told you before that-"

"-That it's not so simple as you're overbooked as it is." Tatsumi responds, finishing the man's sentence and annoying him slightly. "I respect that. However, it doesn't matter what job it is. You could make me clean barracks for ten years for my life and I wouldn't care. You could send me to some backwater outpost with flies and sand and I wouldn't care. Just…" He somehow goes even further to the ground. "Please! I need to be able to do this for my village. That's the only reason for my shitty behaviour yesterday." He continues to rant, seemingly trying to pour as much incentive into it a possible. "You can even beat me until you feel satisfied if it helps just…"

"_Urgh, I wish this kid would just shut up!" _A voice in the Officer's head calls out as he starts to block out the youth's pleading. _"Blah blah blah 'give me a job and I'll serve you for the rest of my life!' God, does this kid not think that I deal with people like him all the time? I should just throw him out now, I mean it's not like-" _He subtly stares away from the pleading youth to see that his co-workers, rather strangely, were looking at him with similar amounts of pleading, as if taking the youth's side.

"_You've got to be kidding! They're taking HIS side?!" _He exclaims._ "What do I do now? I can't just kick out this kid now or they might get me in trouble with our boss at some point. If they all start bitching to him about how horrible I was to deny this 'poor boy', he might just fire me to please my stupid co-workers!" He mentally rubs his head in frustration. "What do I do? I can't just give into this brat and make a mockery of myself, but I can't piss off everyone I work with either."_

As he ponders he situation, his eyes momentarily glance over the desk pensively. By a stroke of fortune, his eyes spy a sheet that had been the bane of his existence really. Since Tatsumi is still currently staring at the ground, he doesn't notice the man subtly move the stacks of paper covering the file he spied, looking at it, and smirking slightly.

"_Yes… That's perfect!" _He exclaims to himself wickedly. "_I'm killing THREE birds with one stone: First, I'm making sure that this shitstain gets his comeuppance for backing me into this corner. Secondly, I'm pleasing my pissy co-workers for giving him a job AND I can make the quota for those reinforcements. After all, 200 looks a lot better than 199._"

"…Which is why I wish if you would-"

"Kid, you've got a deal." The officer finally states, eliciting gasps from his co-workers and murmurs of approval.

"That's great, but I…" The youth momentarily goes silent, as if processing what he just heard. After a delayed silence, he raises his head to look at the man. "Pardon?"

"I said you've got a deal!" The man addresses the youth enthusiastically, flashing him a reassuring smile. "You've convinced me, so I'll give you a job."

"Really?!" Tatsumi replies with an ecstatic tone, rising hastily from his position and running up to man's desk before stopping and bowing repeatedly. "Thank you very much!"

"Alright, alright, calm down." The officer states. "We need to get down to the details."

"Of course, sir!"

"Good." He assures the youth, momentarily glancing to the side to see that his co-workers had gone back to their own business, seemingly satisfied with his display of mercy. "Now then, as you know, this isn't anything special like an officer position or working in a special unit or anything like that."

"Of course not, sir!" Tatsumi responds happily. "I'd even be happy scrubbing horses in the stables."

"Oh, don't worry, it's nothing lame like that." The older man informs Tatsumi. "In fact, it's a direct transfer to one of our frontlines." This statement fills Tatsumi with a sense of awe at the prospect of fighting heroically in battle straight away. Still, he was perplexed by something.

"A direct transfer already?" Tatsumi asks confusedly. "I thought that we had to go through the training process and other stuff like that."

"Well, normally, you would." The older man agrees. "Normally. Luckily for you, a reinforcement request has been put in by one of our frontline forces and we've got a shortage of volunteers for it, so we're being a bit more…" he leans over and whispers conspiratorially. "Relaxed about who we're signing up. Lucky for you, eh?"

"Yes!" Tatsumi responds. "Very lucky, ha ha."

"Alright then." The man leans back into his chair before pulling the document out and getting it ready for the youth. "You're being transferred to one of armies stationed in the northern zone laying siege to one of those forts up there." At this revelation, Tatsumi pouts disappointingly.

"The North?!" He exclaims. "I just spent who knows how long coming from there to this city and you're telling me that I'm going straight back there?"

"Well, no." The officer craftily assures him. "You'll be travelling part of a fast-moving convoy, so the journey will be much less tedious than when you had to come here." He then adopts a strict expression, looking down at the youth. "Besides, it's all I've got, so you can take it or leave it."

"No, I'll take it!" Tatsumi fires back. "I was just disappointed that I'd be going back so soon."

"Well, that's good. Now then…" He then slides a sheet of paper in front of the youth as well as quill for him to use. He then points out a blank spot at the bottom of the page. "Just sign here and you'll be ready to go."

"Hold on, there was something I wanted to ask." Tatsumi interjects, causing the Official to quietly grunt in annoyance. "In regards to pay… How does it work exactly?"

"Ah, I guess you'd want to know about that." He then clears his throat. "It's quite simple: As a foot soldier, your pay is proportionate to what sort of missions and placements you go to as well as the risk percentages involved." He explains. "Your weekly payment is a set amount influenced by the factors I mentioned before: Risk percentage 10 or lower is 20 Silver pieces. Between 20 and 11 is 30 silver, 30 to 21 is 40 silver and I think you get the impression." He then points out a percentage on the sheet labelled as '60%'. "Since this is a 60%, you get 70 silver pieces for how long you are posted there. You come back here and collect the accumulated amount after the post has ended. For example: If your post is a month, you'll make 280 silver."

"And what if…" A crestfallen look crosses Tatsumi's face. "What if I die?"

"If you die…" He then reaches over again and point out another empty box. "This is where you list your benefactor as well as their address. After you die, whatever money you have accumulated in a posting is immediately sent to them as well as an extra amount that is double what you accumulated."

"So, like the example you gave before:" Tatsumi begins. "If I died after a month of being at this posting, then my benefactor would get…" His eyes widen hopefully. "840 silver pieces?"

"_That could get my village out of their poverty!"_

"Yep, that's exactly how it works." He confirms, smirking devilishly. "_Assuming you even make it through the first week, which I doubt. Knowing where you're going…"_

"I'll do it!" Tatsumi declares with a final tone. "I'll sign up."

"Excellent!" The officer confirms before once again signalling the signature box and the benefactor box on the sheet in front of Tatsumi. "Just sign your name and the details and location of your benefactor and we're done!"

Wasting no time at all, the youth does just that, grabbing the feathered writing stationary and scribbling away hastily, jotting down the location and name of his village, and then finishing with an enthusiastic signature.

"_Elder… I did it! If I can make it for at least a month, then you might not be starving anymore!"_

"Congratulations, kid." The recruitment officer says, holding out his hand. "You're now a member of the Imperial Army!"

"Yes!" Tatsumi exclaims, grabbing the man's hand and shaking it enthusiastically. "Thank you so much!"

"Now then, it's time for the next order of business." The man declares, confusing the youth momentarily before he reaches into one of his desk drawers and pulls out another sheet of paper. Still confused, Tatsumi can only watch as the individual hastily writes on it. Once finished, he presents it to the youth. "Since you're now a member, you need the appropriate uniform. This is a requisition order that will get you all you need." He explains as Tatsumi takes it and glances over the contents. "Just take it to the Quartermaster and he'll properly outfit you."

"I'm sorry, but…" Tatsumi scratches the back of his head sheepishly. "I don't know my way around yet. Could you please give me some directions?"

Looking at the youth once again, the man grabs another sheet of paper and hastily starts scribbling on it, quietly scoffing under his breath.

"_Country hicks…"_

Soon enough, the man was finished as he presented the second sheet to the youth.

"There, you've got some directions." He mutters irritably. "Now, once you've been sorted with that, you need to hurry back to the Main Gate as the Convoy's departing at Midnight."

"Midnight?!" Tatsumi exclaims. "But that's only a few hours away!"

"Well, you'll need to hurry then, won't you?!"

"Right!" Tatsumi exclaims, hurriedly turning to run towards the exit. Once he reaches it, he quickly turns back around and bows again. "Thank you for your help!"

And with that, the youth hastily pulls the door back and hurries back out onto the bustling street, leaving the barracks office quiet again.

Once sure that the youth was out of hearing range, the man leaned back into his seat and smirked to himself wickedly, seemingly happy with his end result.

"_Well, it's all worked out for me hasn't it?" _He thinks to himself happily. "_Sorry for this, kid, but it's your own fault for trying to guilt-trip me. If the frost or Danger Beasts don't get you, then the Northerners will." _A fearful look crosses his face then.

"_Or if you're really unluckly, SHE'LL find something for you to suffer for… Crazy bitch she is."_

* * *

><p><strong>Midnight… Approaching the Capital's Main Gates…<strong>

"Oh, man, I can't believe that I just got here and I'm already leaving again!" Tatsumi mutters with an annoyed tone before smirking a little.

Like he was given the requisition order for, the youth has swapped out is old civilian clothes and is now garbed in the standard Imperial armour (That he had rather hastily procured from the Armoury that the Recruitment Officer had directed him to), donning silver shoulder pads a similarly silver chestplate whose weight is not appreciated by its wearer. Underneath the armour, he wears the standard beige fatigues worn by the imperials, the familiar standard helmet was also being carried under one of his arms while his bag of personal provisions was slung over his back in the other. Luckily, he was still allowed to wear his leather gauntlets, his brown boots (With the issued trousers being tucked into them) and equip his personal Shortsword, the small weapon already fastened around his back.

"Oh, who cares? When I get back, I'll have riches beyond Sayo and Ieyasu's imaginations while they're probably shovelling manure! Oh, man, I can't wait to rub it in their faces!" He reasons gleefully, fist-bumping his gloved appendages together in enthusiasm before he takes in the sight of the Opened Main Gates. "Ah, that must be the convoy!"

As mentioned, the youth regards a large column of common carriages being pulled by horses. While he can't see the total amount, he can surmise that there is at least 20 there. He can also, as he closes in on the convoy, determine that the convoy is a mixture of transport and supply carriages. Some had tarpaulins already fastened over them to provide the commuting soldiers with shelter while others had open-top carriages, the boxes of supplies exposed.

Feeling decidedly enthusiastic, the brunette breaks into a small, chipper jog, eager to finally make a name for himself in the Imperial Army and earn himself the money and glory he's always dreamed of; the memory of just what he had to do to acquire this position seemingly already removed from his mind.

Unfortunately, the youth felt, as he drew nearer and nearer to the soon-to-depart Convoy, a sense of despair and desperation polluting the air. The grim atmosphere hitting him like a proverbial freight train, the youth slows back down to an apprehensive walk as he finally reaches the convoy and observes just WHY the atmosphere was so grim.

None of the individuals getting onto or hovering outside of the carriages look particularly enthralled to be there. Many seem like they were one step away from turning around and running away. On the contrary, he swears he could see some of the individuals clambering into the carriages shaking, seemingly terrified.

Rather unsettled, he tries his hardest to ignore these observations and clambers into one of the carriages, placing himself on one of the side benches and dropping all of his possessions between his legs and perching himself between two other individuals, both male.

Once properly acclimated, Tatsumi makes another rather unsettling observation: In the carriage with him, there weren't many people who looked to be in good health. The two men he was sat next to looked unkempt and messy, sporting masses of messy facial hair. Across from him sat a young man in his early twenties who was ghostly pale and looked like he hadn't eaten in a few days. The other occupants of the transport all seemed like a similar sort; dirty and hungry.

"_What's going on here?"_

"NO, DON'T LEAVE US!" A voice screamed, startling Tatsumi. He looks out of the back of the carriage to see a poorly-kept woman dressed in rags, one of her arms holding what looked to be a child's swaddle (occupied) and grasping the arm of a male individual sporting the Empire's armour as he's about to embark one of the carriages adjacent to Tatsumi's own. The woman had a pleading look on her face, seemingly begging the man.

"I need to!" He shoots back heatedly. "What other choice is there?!"

"I don't know…" She admits. "But anything other than this! We need you here!"

"And what good am I when I could be dead in a year?!" He counters quickly, startling the woman. "We know that we don't have much of a chance at life for any of us." He puts his unrestrained hand on the woman's, as if trying to comfort her. "This way, I can at least give us a second chance."

"But what if you…" She trails, her eyes staring at the ground. The woman starts to hiccup and sob, seemingly unaware that she starts to loosen her grip. "What if you…"

"If I do…" He begins, managing to slide of her grip and taking a few steps backwards from her as a couple of guarding soldiers stand in front of him, preventing the woman from advancing again. "… Then just you and little Bek might have a second chance."

"David-"

"I love you." He simply says before clambering inside the carriage and pulling the rear cover down, seemingly. Tatsumi stares away in shock and confusion. A fortunate moment to do so as he's able to miss the guards pushing and shoving the woman away who continues to cry out for her apparent lover… At least until the cries stopped after she was driving far enough away.

Still reeling from the shock of what he just witnessed, Tatsumi sits there unmoving, contemplating what he just saw while staring at the ground… Until a voice broke him out of his reverie.

"Young man…" A weary old voice calls out. "What you doing here?"

Confused, Tatsumi looks up at one of the men sitting across from him. He was of the elderly persuasion, boasting a ragged white beard that engulfed his face and a man of greasy hair.

"What am I doing here?" Tatsumi repeats, confused by the question. "I… I signed up for this at the office."

"But you're so young and in good health." The man observes, coughing slightly. "Why were you so needy to take this position?"

"Needy?" Tatsumi asks in a perplexed tone. "I don't understand."

"You don't understand? How can you not understand?!" He fires back, his tone becoming a little more heated as he rises from his bench a little. "How can you not understand why you're so quick to throw your life away?!"

"Hey hey, calm down!" Tatsumi tries to assure the man, waving his hands in front of him. "I've only been in the capital since yesterday morning, so excuse me if I'm not clued up on anything at the moment!" The response seems to have the desired effect as the clearly antagonised old man calms down. "It was the first job I could get a hold of, so I took it because every other place I went said I was too young."

"There are far better alternatives than this. Even licking noblemen's boots is a better alternative than this" He responds in a mirthful tone. "But if you're not local to this area, then I can understand why how you could have been swindled so easily."

"Swindled?" Tatsumi repeats, still confused by the old man's ramblings. "What are you talking about?"

"This 'job'…" The old man begins, quoting the term 'job' "… is nothing more than a death sentence for all of us." At that statement, the youth's eyes widen and a shocked look is clear on his features.

"A death sentence?" Tatsumi asks with confusion. "How… How could this be a death sentence? The recruitment officer said that, once we got to the Company we're reinforcing, that we'll be safe. He said that we were going to fight alongside an elite unit." Tatsumi counters, seemingly trying to come out on top of this debate. "He said that the whole reason the death percentage is so low is because, aside from the frost and the Danger Beasts on the way there, the mission is easy once we get there."

"While all of that is true." The old man agrees. "That supposed 'elite unit' is what will be the death of us."

"Wait a minute…" Tatsumi interrupts, scratching his temple. "You're saying our allies are what's gonna kill us?"

"Yes." He responds simply, nodding as he does so. "And, unfortunately, the Empire's bursary system doesn't account for own allies stabbing us in the back which means that risk percentage counts for nothing when this unit is involved." He lets out a hollow chuckle. "How amusing that only the Empire doesn't compensate its army for the actions of its comrades."

"Then what are you all doing here?"

"What choice do we have?" He responds simply. "We're all too sick or too hungry to get another job nor be put through the full training regimen. With the nobles hogging most of the economy of our country, the military is the only place that still has a decent income, so this is what you'd call the Last Resort for most of us." He gestures back outside. "You heard that couple. For that man, this is all he can do to get his family some money." He then looks back at Tatsumi. "Which is why your presence is so confusing and why you'd wish to come fight for such an accursed army instead of just being patient and enrolling normally."

"Well, it's not the whole army that's the problem." Another voice cuts in, coming from Tatsumi's left. "The only real problem is _THAT _woman."

"That is definitely true." The elderly man replies, chuckling a little bit.

"That woman…?"

"Our esteemed commander, you idiot." The second man clarifies. "A woman who, in the name of the 'glorious' empire, has committed countless atrocities."

"Indeed." The elderly man agrees. "I remember I heard a tale of her forcing the warriors of a rebellious village she defeated to sit and watch as her army plundered its gold and violated its women and children; all the while she stood there and smiled at them."

"That sounds… Horrible." Tatsumi remarks, a fearful expression clear on his face, before shaking his head in denial. "Well, she's just a little ruthless to our enemies then. What's that got to do with us?"

"Fool." The younger man interjects, alerting Tatsumi. "If she does that to her enemies, what do you suppose the treatment of her army is like?"

"I've heard that she once threw a group of unarmed greenhorns into a Danger Beast pit." Another voice calls in, adding to the tension. "Simply because she wanted to test if they were worthy."

"I've heard that, when there are no enemies to kill, she resorts to tormenting her own men to satisfy her bloodlust."

"It doesn't matter who you are or where you come from. If she believes that you're not worthy to serve her, she apparently will just kill you where you stand."

"To her, we're just pawns. I won't be surprised if she just throws us as at the enemy walls to be shot down, so that we create a mass of bodies for them to hide behind themselves.

"Now do you see, young lad?" The old man regards Tatsumi again. "Do you see what we're-"

"IS EVERYBODY READY?!" A loud voice called out which was meant with silence as the carriage Tatsumi sat in stops their conversation quite quickly. "I HOPE SO BECAUSE THIS IS IT! CLOSE THE TARPS!"

At his command, all of the carriages rolled their rear coverings down, blocking the outside world from the soldiers inside the transports.

"What… What's the woman's name?" Tatsumi asks with a fearful tone.

"ALL CARRIAGES PREPARE TO MOVE!" The loud voice, once again boomed over the convoy. "WE'RE MOVING OUT!"

That seemed to resonate throughout the whole column. The command seemed to spur the horses into life as every carriage began an almost simultaneous movement. Tatsumi, however, barely heard the order nor felt the shake of the movement. He wanted to know the answer to who prompted such fear and defeatism in these individuals.

"The Empire's Strongest and our very own Queen of Ice…" The old man glanced back up again, a defeated look in his eyes.

"… General Esdese…"

* * *

><p><em><strong>Oh, boy, this is a Fanfiction that I have been wanting to do for a very long while. I've had this one in my head for a few months and I'm so happy that I finally got the chance to write it.<strong>_

_**So there's the first chapter. Probably not the most interesting as the point of it was more to lay the premise bare and set up where exactly this Fanfic is going. If there are any concerns, please place them in your review and I will try and give you a decent answer or explanation.**_

_**Yes, I like Akame Ga Kill. I used to love it, but recently I've started to fall down to just like with it making a few decisions that I found… Poor from a storytelling and logical standpoint. I still like it a lot, but there's a lot about it that irks me. Less said about the anime, the better. In some regards, this Fanfic is me writing the series in a direction I would have preferred.**_

_**Another thing I want to bring up is this: There will be a few similarities to AwesomeNorweigan's own Fanfic "Alternate Worlds". These are NOT intentional and not me just copying off of his story. They're purely coincidental. I thought of these ideas before the chapters in his story containing them were ever released. It's just a coincidence, but I thought it was worth me addressing them before people jump to the conclusion I'm ripping him off. It's weird and rare, but having the same ideas can happen.**_

_**Also, in regards to OCs, I will be using them in the bare minimum capacity. There won't be any major OC characters or any OC protagonists.**_

_**Anyway, that's it for now. Not sure when the next chapter will be released, but keep an eye out for it!**_

_**R-0 out!**_


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